


the odds were never in our favor (Meta)

by aletterinthenameofsanity



Series: the odds were never in our favor [15]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Brainwashing, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Meta, Prostitution, Symbolism, explaining what the fuck was happening in this series, reginald hargreeves is president snow, the handler is president coin, the hargreeves siblings are former victors
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2019-12-18 13:57:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18251237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aletterinthenameofsanity/pseuds/aletterinthenameofsanity
Summary: Explanation behind various aspects of this series.





	1. Powers Parallel in the Games Themselves

**Author's Note:**

> After explaining so much of the thought process/symbolism/psychology behind this series to various commenters, I realized that I kinda wanted to write meta on everything in this series to explain different aspects of what I was thinking when writing this. So, each chapter will deal with a different aspect of the thought process behind the series, from everythig behind how the characters' powers were translated into this 'verse, how they survived the Capitol and how that was influenced by how their motivations functioned within Panem, and how certain characters were designed to parallel each other.
> 
> Hope this makes sense, but even if it doesn't, I had a lot fun writing it. This series means a lot to me, and I'm hoping this can be useful to some of you.

Alright, so there's a lot to unpack when it comes to the Games themselves and how each character survives, and how each and every character (including Klaus)'s Victory parallels their powers from canon. I'm gonna go easiest to hardest when explaining, so strap in.

Luther's pretty straightforward. He won using super strength, being the strongest one on the field. Not that crazy. But what  _is_ important to note about his win, however, is that he has by far the most training save maybe Allison going in. He is doing the win for the honor of it, the only one of them trying to impress the Capitol and President Hargreeves.

Allison's win is founded in her manipulation of her fellow opponents and lots of (literal) backstabbing, pretty easily paralleling her whole "Rumor" power. To be honest, her Arena win was probably the simplest to figure out besides Diego (because no shit for him), and I put a lot more effort into developing her time after her Games, in the Capitol, than I did in designing her Arena.

Five's was a bit harder to translate as, you know, you can't exactly have a kid teleport around in a semi-realistic story such as this. There is a mention of him being a little faster than everyone else in the Arena, but nothing too absurd.

So what else does Five have besides teleportation? Super smarts. I'm gonna talk in a later chapter about how he utilizes this intelligence outside of the Arena, but within the Arena he has the second largest kill count out of any of the Victors save Vanya (same as canon), but unlike Vanya his kills are very direct and immediately destructive.

Vanya has the largest kill count (and, by the way, I  _did_ mark out in my notes each character's kill count. It's Allison: 5, Luther: 5, Ben: 3, Diego: 6, Five: 10, Vanya: 12, Klaus: 1) by far, definitely paralleling her powers in canon, but more specifically she wins by manipulating the climate of the Arena itself to straight up cause apocalyptic levels of blizzards that kill more tributes than any other Victor. 

Diego wins using knife skills. This is a bit of a no-brainer, so I ended up spending more time on his backstory than on his time in the Arena. I placed him in DIstrict 10 instead of one of the Career Districts for a reason, and that's to show that he learned the knife skills through his own effort, not through true training.

(There's also the small reference to how he has a higher kill count than Luther, because his powers are more effective than Luther's.)

Ben's powers can't exactly be directly translated- tentacles and all- but his final kill reflects his powers and how he processes them in canon. He violently kills another tribute by strangling them, but he's feverish when he does it and he clearly didn't mean to do it. His most violent kill is made not on purpose, but rather through a "haze."

(However, he does purposefully kill his District partner, but he kills her peacefully with poisonous berries. His reasoning for that, though, is for another chapter dissecting character motivations rather than power symbolism.)

And then there's Klaus. Klaus, who doesn't fight, who just survives, and yes, he can't summon the dead but there's an important side effect of his powers in the show that people gloss over, and that's the fact that he  _just doesn't die_. His win, more than anyone else's, is characterized by just refusing to die and continuing to survive no matter what, which reflects his inability to die shown in the show.


	2. Five v. Allison: The Politician v. The Showman

Five and Allison are really interesting parallels when it comes to motivation in this series. They both obviously know how to manipulate an audience- Allison does it with her designs, her words, and her body (and let me tell you in a later chapter about the difference/similarities in motivations between Allison and Klaus when it comes to being a Capitol whore, and how Allison uses it as a tool to help her tributes while Klaus does it just to survive), while Five does it with his words and his intelligence.

But when it comes to the difference in how they perceive the audience they're working, certain things become rather clear in how they work.

You see, Allison's a showwoman who can really analyze the optics of things in regards to herself and the people she cares about, while Five is really good at analyzing the wider political ramifications of a situation. Five's more "big picture" while Allison is good at the minute details. When it comes to what will happen if she goes against President Hargreeves, she doesn't necessarily think "big picture." She only thinks about what will happen if she fucks up or doesn't do what President Hargreeves wants, without realizing that a lot of the stuff she's worried about would just happen anyway.

When it comes down to Claire being Reaped in the future, Allison doesn't see her daughter being Reaped as an inevitability, but rather as a possible punishment for her fuck-ups. Allison does everything she can to avoid this possibility, without realizing that when it comes to President Hargreeves, he would have had Claire Reaped no matter what, most likely when she's eighteen so no Career would dare volunteer for her, and then he would have had the Gamemakers make sure Claire died in the Arena. Allison is in denial, or maybe she doesn't pick up on this to begin with, but either way, she doesn't recognize the fact that her daughter is dead before age nineteen no matter what. 

Five, on the other hand, does see things for what they are. He recognizes that President Hargreeves will do anything to punish, isolate, and manipulate his Victors. He recognizes that there are no limits to Hargeeves' cruelty and abuse.

And this is why he doesn't try to make the best of the situation, like Allison does. This is why he turns to Haymitch and Chaff and finding a way to get the Rebellion to help save his family.

He knows that Handler and the Rebellion can be used to liberate his family, while staying with Hargreeves will only lead to a slow and miserable death. So he does everything he can to change the Game, rather than just survive it.

Allison, on the other hand, is still in the Arena mentally-speaking, trying to figure out how to survive the dangers of the Capitol, while Five is thinking about how to destroy the Arena itself and get them all out of it. 


	3. The Handler and Reginald Hargreeves: Parallels With Original Canon

Alright, bitches, let's talk about why Reginald Hargreeves makes the perfect President Snow.

President Snow is a symbol of the original tyranny in Panem, while President Coin is the perfect symbol of the false hope that Katniss (or, in this case, Five) turns to in order to escape, which ends up becoming just another form of tyranny that our lovely heroes have to escape from.

In the original canon, Reginald Hargreeves does anything to keep his children isolated, abused, and controlled, giving them no way to use their powers (or, in this case, their wins) against him. He uses the resources available to him in canon to do whatever he can to control his children's powers, which are mostly the fact that a father can manipulate his children how he wants. He has financial resources, as well as an idea of how to manipulate the media, but he doesn't have an entire country's power.

Now imagine good ol' Reggie with the powers of an entire country and absolute possible control over nearly every aspect of the Victors' lives. He can manipulate them into adulthood and use them however he deems appropriate, even if that's forcing them into prostitution, killing their lovers, and separating them from their children.

Now, in a plot perspective, President Snow and Reginald Hargreeves both function, within the narrative, as the first antagonist in the lives of the main characters. Priorities shift later on to Coin/the Handler, and thus the parallels stem not only from character motivation/actions but also from a chronological POV as well.

So, moving onto the Handler. The Handler runs the Comission, which Five uses to protect and save his siblings. In this 'verse, Five turns to her as a way specifically to rescue his siblings from President Hargreeves' manipulations (which is, distantly enough, related to why he uses her and the Commission in canon- to prevent the Apocalypse, which at the end of the day is just an indirect result of Reginald's fucked up parenting).

As a commenter kept asking- and thank you for your interest, lovely commenter- how did Five hold the Handler's attention? Well, it's never entirely spelled out how- I don't think that I even entirely figured out everything Five used to convince the Handler to save his family- but there is a distinct parallel with the fact that in canon, Five is able to talk his way around the Handler a number of times.

Five's killing of the Handler in the final story in this series is a direct parallel to the grenade-blowing-up-the-Commission scene in canon.

(There was, in my original draft, going to be him using a grenade to kill her, and I'm still not sure why I didn't go with that- oh yeah, Five's backstory ended up being developed a lot in that scene and his practicing knifework with Diego and the other Victors became important for character development stuff. But Five's motivation is a story for another chapter. This section is about the Handler and Coin. Moving on.)

So at the end of the day, the only difference between Hargreeves/Snow and Handler/Coin is how they die. Due to certain changes within the 74th Hunger Games, Katniss no longer has the greatest motivation to kill them.

Coin/the Handler is always going to die- that happens in both Panem and in UA canon. She's going to die by a Victor's hand- but in this version of events, that has to be Five, who, like Katniss, kills her because of those explosives and dropping them. However, he does not kill her because of some grand moral reason, because he's taking a stand against war crimes- instead, he kills her because the Handler was going to kill his family and he had to stop her. Kind of a self-defense reasoning, in a way.

Hargreeves kills himself in canon, in order to bring his children together- neither Hargreeves or Snow would have such a motivation in this 'verse. However, Klaus is there, and Klaus has motivation, means, and timing. (Hargreeves' death was honestly less about building parallels and more about giving Klaus a satisfactory ending to his arc in this 'verse and giving him agency in this story.)

So in the end, Snow became Hargreeves because of their shared desire for control and their place as the first antagonist who shapes the seven children/Victors into the killing machines they would one day become, and Coin becomes the Handler because of their role as the haven that the main character turns to in order to fight an earlier antagonist (Snow/The Apocalypse), that ends up turning into the second main antagonist of the story.


	4. Survival in the Capitol: The Capitol's Whores

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An analysis of Klaus and Allison's motivations beyond just surviving the Capitol, and

So now we come to my boy Klaus and Allison, and how they survived the Capitol and all the various reasons they get dragged into being the Capitol's whores.

Luther mentions in wonder if better now having survived that Klaus and Allison are "escapists trying to survive the present," and he has a major point there, but even within their similar broad motivations, there are different conflicting reasons in their further motivations. Though they both have no choice in becoming Capitol whores, they do have differences in how they use it.

There is a major distinction to be made in how the two of them react to having a person they love outside the Capitol. Allison stays; Klaus leaves. This may seem like a minor difference, but it really shows how the major difference in how they perceive the situation.

Allison can see the big picture, can see how she can use the situation she's being forced into can help her. She can see how she can use her love (her daughter, her baby) to do better in the Capitol, to improve her tributes' chances; Klaus is just so desperate for a chance at happiness that he doesn't think about how President Hargreeves will react. Instead, he just dives into a life in District 8, not thinking about consequences of leaving the Capitol and ditching the President's desires.

Allison is making an attempt at living, at giving her life some sort of purpose even though she knows she's trapped; Klaus is just surviving. He's always been  _just_ _surviving_ in this 'verse. When he has the chance to actually live with Dave, to make some sort of life for himself, he takes it without considering the consequences.

There is a major distinction to be made after Dave dies, when Klaus no longer has hope of any sort of life, while Allison still has Claire. Klaus doesn't just go back to what he was before- he ends up spending nearly every waking moment high.

Here is an important distinction from UA canon: Without Klaus' powers, Dave's death becomes not a motivation to get sober but instead a motivation to absolutely drown himself in drugs. (Only later, with the Rebellion, does Klaus get the motivation to get sober.) 


	5. The Victors' Districts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick term clarification: Career Districts are One, Two, and Four, and are the ones that actually train kids for the Games. The outlier Districts are everyone else.

Alright, so this is when I explain why the fuck I stuck the Hargreeves' siblings into the Districts I did, rather than just stick them in their Number's District and be done with it. We'll go One-Seven their originally numbered way, and try to give some kind of explanation as to why my thoughts went the way they did.

Let's start with Luther. Immediately my brain went to District One, Two, or Four would have worked for him, honestly, because of the Career aspect, but there were a couple of factors that put him over the edge into Two. First off, he has absolutely nothing that could possibly push him to water, and besides, Four has some ties to outlier districts. That never could have worked. Now, between One and Two, one thing really moved me, and that's the fact that District Two is the most loyal District to the Capitol, the only District to (in canon, not in this 'verse) never to voluntarily join the Rebels. Even in this 'verse, they are the last to turn against the Capitol. This is a fantastic parallel to Luther's loyalty to Reginald Hargreeves in canon.

Then comes Diego, who I early on determined could not have been from a Career District because of his utter lack of loyalty to Reginald Hargreeves. He had to be from an outlier District, but he also had to win his Games from his knife skills (no shit). So what was a District in which he could easily gain those in natural way? Well, either District Ten or Eleven might have worked, but I was really trying to avoid sticking a sibling in District Eleven or Twelve because they were the ones most explored by canon. And besides, I could really work with the "slaughtered v. slaughterer" motif if Diego was from the livestock district. Thus, District Ten.

Allison has the ability to be fucking ruthless in canon, and she obviously builds herself the best and richest post-Umbrella Academy life in canon. Thus, she would have to have a similiar path as a Victor in the Capitol (at least, in the returns she pulls from Sponsors). She couldn't do such a thing being from an outlier District, especially if she was going to manipulate the Sponsors constantly (they wouldn't trust someone from an outlier as easily). Thus, One, Two, or Four. Other than Ben and Klaus, who I had specific reasons to keep in the same District (because they couldn't be fucking separated in canon), I didn't want any characters to be victors from the same District. Thus, no Two. Either One or Four. And, well, One is the District of luxury goods, which really fits her job in canon, so that's where I slipped her in.

Ben and Klaus had to be from the same District, and it had to be an outlier District. I'd already ruled out Five, Three, Eleven, Twelve, and Ten by that point (read other characters' reasons for that), and thus I was left with Districts Six, Seven, Eight, and Nine. How to narrow it down?

So here's an interesting detail that always stuck with me from the books: the first offical uprisings in the Districts take place in District Eight. They take the heaviest casualties of the twelve Districts in fighting in the Rebellion (fire bombing of Twelve took place before the Rebellion, and thus doesn't count. Textiles don't really matter for why I stick Ben and Klaus in Eight. It has to do with the symbolism of the Rebellion, the constant fighting, the surviving.

Five was pretty easy. Three is the District of electronics, of inventing, and I had to give him a way to know how to apply his considerable intellect. He had to be given a way to figure out how bombs were configured before I sent him into the Arena. Thus, Three.

(And there's also the aspect that he had to be from an outlier because he  _had_ to be underestimated by the Capitol, as he was by everyone in canon, but that's kind of secondary to the electronics aspect.)

Vanya gets stuck in Five because she  _has_ to be an outlier- almost more than any other Hargreeves sibling save maybe Klaus, because of how much people underestimate her in canon- and because Five is the District that produces the power for the Districts- mostly nuclear power. The symbolism in inescapable and I just couldn't resist.

(And it may have been, just a little bit, that Vanya's first Games to mentor in is Katniss', and thus her first tribute is Foxface, who I thought would be a great foil or parallel for Vanya.)


End file.
